Course Descriptions

Prerequisites: RCC*. This course will focus on the function, procedure, and powers of administrative agencies; constitutional and statutory limitations; judicial review and relief from orders and decisions; the administrative process and its role in the development of public policy. Satisfies the administrative law requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. A course designed to sharpen the student’s ability to research complex legal issues, to prepare appellate briefs and to engage in oral argument. Required of students who wish to try out for interscholastic Moot Court Competition. Satisfies third semester of legal writing requirement and skills course requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC. This course is designed to build upon basic knowledge of legal resources and provide the foundation needed for advanced legal research. Sources emphasized will include legislative and statutory law, administrative law, judicial authority, and secondary sources. In addition, the course will examine research strategies, cost-effective research techniques, practitioner materials, and interdisciplinary research associated with business, scientific, and technical information. The goal of the course is not only to familiarize the student with particular legal research resources but to also instill in the student how to think about conducting research and to critically analyze research sources. Students will complete a variety of exercises, a mid-term, and a final research project.

Federal regulatory and administrative law have become integral to almost every lawyer's practice. As evidenced in the daily Federal Register, there are routinely regulatory amendments that require lawyers engaged in administrative legal practice to respond to rapidly changing law. Understanding the tools of administrative law research is a skill necessary to practice in regulated fields like Tax, Environmental Law and Bankruptcy. In this course, you will strengthen your general research skills, with an emphasis on how administrative law fits into both federal and state law schemes.

Prerequisites: RCC*. This course will be structured around three substantial writing assignments modeled after the kinds of writing tasks demanded of lawyers. The writing component will involve both objective and persuasive writing. While reinforcing the analytic skills developed in the first year writing course, the course will focus less on the mechanics of legal analysis and document construction and more on varied techniques for effective writing. The research component of the course will require students to perform the research necessary for two of the course’s major writing assignments, including statutory and case research tools, legislative history and administrative law research. Satisfies third semester of legal writing requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. This course provides an introduction to business associations. Employers and business entities, whether sole proprietorships, partnerships, or large corporations, utilize agents-- especially employees -- to effectuate their business objectives. Agency relationships can be formed intentionally or inadvertently, but regardless how they originate, the law imposes strict duties of conduct on both agents and their principals, and exacts severe penalties for their breach. The course examines the law of agency closely, including vicarious liability for wrongs of another and authority to bind another by assent or representation. Second, the course focuses on the law governing partnerships and addresses the complex intersection of agency and partnership law (i.e., the legal consequences of partners simultaneously being agents for the partnership as well as principals). Because the Uniform Partnership Acts impose numerous legal and economic risks for partners and partnerships, many business entities have reorganized to limit their liability consistent with the structures newly created by state statute, e.g., as a limited liability partnership or limited liability company. These diverse new statutory options for business organization constitute the final focus of the course. Required for the Business Law concentration.

Prerequisites: RCC*. This 2-credit seminar will focus upon the legal issues the elderly face when interacting with the health care system, including dying with dignity decisions, nursing home abuse and paying for health and long-term care. There are no upper level prerequisites for the course. The grade in the course will be determined by a paper and class presentation.

Prerequisites: RCC*. Judicial, court-centered processes are neither the only nor, necessarily, the best methods of resolving disputes. This course surveys the range of dispute resolution processes that are alternatives to litigation and adjudication. These include detailed study of the primary dispute resolution processes -negotiation, mediation, and arbitration - as well as some of their hybrid variants. The course also examines noteworthy applications of these litigation alternatives, the context for which ranges from the personal to the global. The ethical issues surrounding effective client advocacy in non-litigation situations will be explored in depth. When coverage includes international dispute resolution systems will count as an elective in the International and Comparative Law concentration. Satisfies skills course requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. Lectures and discussions exploring various topics in American legal history from colonial times to the twentieth century. Topics may include legal control of “deviants” (criminals, juvenile delinquents, paupers, political dissidents), the growth of legal institutions and the legal profession, developments in substantive private law, law and the economy, the problem of freedom of speech and press, the law of slavery, and the changing status of women and children. Other topics may be substituted or added from time to time. Satisfies perspective elective requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. The ancient Athenians have been widely celebrated for their contributions to literature, philosophy and political thought. However, the genius of the Athenian people was also reflected in their legal innovations – which include the concepts of trial-by jury and judicial review. This course will provide students with a basic understanding of the structure and procedures of the Athenian legal system. Topics covered in the course include the Athenian constitution, the Athenian jury system, the resolution of commercial disputes, adultery, the torture of witnesses, and the sentencing of criminals. From their readings, students will gain an understanding of a legal system that struggled with many of the same issues that face modern society and which often provided thoughtful and creative solutions. In lieu of a final exam, students will write a 10-page research paper regarding an aspect of Athenian law. Students may choose to fulfill their Upper Level Writing Requirement with this course by writing a 20-page research paper. The course will satisfy the perspective elective requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. Animal Law focuses on the legal, social and biological nature of nonhuman animals, including companion animals, wildlife, and animals raised for food and research. The course will consider such topics as:
1. Areas of national concern and statutory interpretation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Endangered Species Act, federal cruelty laws, the Animal Welfare Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Humane Slaughter Act;
2. State and federal constitutional issues, e.g., exemptions from laws involving the use of animals, “hunter harassment” laws, federal constitutional standing issues involving animal interests, and state constitutional provisions regarding the protection of natural resources; and
3. Local and state law concerns, including common law property as applied to animals, state cruelty laws, agricultural treatment of animals and protection of livestock, municipal regulations of pets, and the changing status of animals in society.
Students will write a paper in the course and make a presentation to the class. Satisfies upper level writing requirement.

Prerequisites: RCC*. This course provides an overview of legal and economic problems in the public control of corporate market power, focusing on the legal (and occasionally economic) significance of price fixing, boycotts, monopolization, franchising restrictions, and mergers. Students will examine how courts evaluate business practices and/or corporate structure.

Prerequisites: RCC*. This course reviews both policy issues and practical applications of selected areas of the law that relate to the creation, display, reproduction, sale, resale and taxation of works of fine art. The areas we will explore are: limitations on the freedom of visual expression, in the form of both government regulation and private causes of action; copyright and trademark law and the fair use doctrine as they apply to visual images and distinctive artistic style; artists’ right to protect their artistic reputation by preserving the integrity and attribution of their works of recognized stature (i.e., droit moral); commercial law issues relating to auctions, consignment sales, and secondary market resales of works of art; limitation of actions against bona fide purchasers of stolen art; and tax considerations relevant to artists, dealers and art collectors.

Prerequisites: RCC*; Immigration & Nationality Law, LAW 734. The course will examine Asylum Law, including an examination of overseas refugees; the meaning of persecution; issues relating to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, social group, sexual orientation, gender; non state actors; standards of proof; exceptions to eligibility; and the convention against terror.
Students will be evaluated through a written project, requiring them to analyze a fact pattern according to the principles studied during the semester. The course will not satisfy the upper level writing requirement.